Amid rising concern that fraud rings are making off with millions of dollars of federal financial aid, some of the colleges most at risk have come up with one deterrent that is notable for its simplicity: They're assigning more coursework.

The University of California Hastings College of the Law will reduce enrollment by 240 students over the next three years — a 20 percent decrease. Administrators cast the move as an acknowledgement that legal academia has become bloated.

Strategic Learning Alternative Techniques (SALT) Center at the University of Arizona:

A dozen strategic learning specialists are assigned to individual students, whom they meet with weekly and coach on everything from time management to self-advocacy. SALT students get help figuring out how and to whom to disclose their learning disability, and how to approach professors and talk to them. Research has shown that students with learning disabilities need to develop self-determination skills. Students begin work on self-advocacy right away.

Last August, when a 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook Virginia, people in offices up the East Coast were reading about the quake before they felt their desks not-so-mysteriously begin to wobble. How? Chalk it up to another feat of Twitter (by this time it had already helped topple unruly regimes in the Middle East). During the earthquake, users tweeted at a rate of 5,500 tweets per second, with 40,000 tweets hitting Twitter timelines and TweetDecks in just one minute.

At first glance, the sprawling University of Arizona and University of Connecticut campuses might not have much in common with Adelphi University and Curry College, smaller private institutions in the suburbs of New York City and Boston, respectively. But all of these schools have built robust programs for undergraduates with learning disabilities (LD), distinguishing themselves in the process.

They’re among an expanding number of institutions working closely with students who decades ago might have struggled to graduate—or not made it to college at all.

There’s an atmosphere of grand fragility hanging over America’s colleges. The grandeur comes from the surging application rates, the international renown, the fancy new dining and athletic facilities. The fragility comes from the fact that colleges are charging more money, but it’s not clear how much actual benefit they are providing.

Hobsons, the leader in recruitment, communication, and student success solutions for colleges and universities, joined forces with Tiffin University (Tiffin or TU) to deploy a virtual student orientation program. Initially deployed with a distance-learning student population, the online portal enables Tiffin to engage with students on students’ terms.